


And we had this, lost, regained

by BorealisMushi



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Reincarnation, death mention, eventually - it's reincarnation after all, everyone's a little ooc because they are new people in a new era, ginko remembers who he is, hurt/comfort i guess?, lost/regained memories, modern au of a sort, the others do not, there's some angst, unspecified modern university setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BorealisMushi/pseuds/BorealisMushi
Summary: Somehow, through his reincarnation, Ginko regained all his memories. Even the ones the tokoyami ate. He studies mushi at university because what else would he do? The age of the Mushi-shi is over, but the modern world has a wealth of new information and new mushi. As he wanders through his new life, familiar faces appear around him.





	1. Ginko

The classroom is stifling and hot, the sun glaring through the windows with burning, senseless anger that summer is already receding. Almost half the students are leaning on or lying across their desks, each one counting the seconds until class is over and they can all fight over who gets to use the soda machine in the hallway first.

The professor stares at the bright young students, all presumably eager to start their mushi studies but almost knocked flat by the heat, and sighs. The air-condition is frantically whirring in a corner of the ceiling, trying and failing to blast the room with cold air and counteract the sun's rage.

"Mushi are life in its most pure form. They cannot be classified with other living things, though many of them resemble animal or insectoid life," he says. Some of the students are scribbling notes.

His attention is caught by one of the students who isn't. An unusually pale-skinned young man with dark brown hair flopping over his face, hiding his left eye. His right eye is dark brown and wanders around the room.

"What is your name?" the professor asks the student suddenly. The student sits up straighter than his previous slouch and fixes a one-eyed stare on the professor.

"My name is Ayumu Yoki, sir" he answers. The professor nods.

"Ayumu, can you tell us how separate the mushi are from all other known life forms?"

"Of course." Yoki replies. He leans forwards as the other students turn to stare at him and raises a hand, fingers splayed out.

"Imagine the Tree of Life as your hand, with each finger representing a branch. Animal, plant, insect, fungi," he says, touching each finger in turn. "They come closer together in your hand, and merge at the wrist. But mushi separated at a far earlier stage- they are their own branch from the shoulder or heart."

The professor nods. "Thank you, Yoki. That is correct, if an old-fashioned way to describe it.” Yoki shrugs minutely. He probably picked it up from one of the myriad mushi books out there.

“Now, before we proceed, it is important to remember that..."

Ayumu Yoki is one of the last students to leave the classroom and the professor takes the opportunity to have a quick talk with the youth. He is polite and pleasant, but when the professor asks him to please not wear his hair across half his face the next time, the youth shakes his head slightly.

"I lost my left eye in an accident as a child," he says. "I don't like wearing eye patches or glass eyes so I cover the socket with my hair instead."

The professor nods in understanding and lets him go.

The young man shoulders his backpack and stuffs his hands into his pockets as he walks across campus.

He thinks back to the accident that cost him his eye. How his own childlike curiosity and stubborn nature caused it, his caretaker's sacrifice to get him out. Nui's hand in his and the strange mushi, stark white against the Tokoyami's absolute dark, the Ginko who ate his eye and his memory and whose name he in return took as his own.

Ginko looks around and sighs. He isn't really sure if he likes the modern era, with all its noisy, invasive inventions, but hair dye and coloured contact lenses are an absolute blessing. Back in the Really Old Days, however long ago that was, his unusual looks got attention enough. Today, with camera cell phones and wireless internet, he is all over social media when people try to sneak photos of his pale skin, white hair and otherworldly green eye, and that leaves him feeling hunted and somehow _violated_. No, better to dye his hair, wear brown contacts and go by his birth name. The lie, such as it is, is so easy it seems natural by now. Lying is something he has long practice with.

He rooms alone and is thankful for that fact. Even back then sharing living space with another human, especially strangers, was not really something he liked to do for long periods of time. And the extra storage space comes in handy when he sets up his shelves and starts putting away his books and personal mushi artefacts.

There's about a meter and a half of Mushishi historical books, encyclopaedias and story collections, some illustrated and others not. Most of the books are clearly well-read and dearly loved, and every one of them is home to a tiny being.

"This is our new home for a while," Ginko tells the mushi that live in the dust and the pages. He thinks they feed on the stories.

He shelves the textbooks next to them and a few mushi curiously drift over to investigate and he gives them a rare smile.

He still attracts mushi like an open can of tuna attracts cats in an alleyway, so on his days off Ginko wanders. He takes care not to follow the same paths too often and tries to go at least an hour away from campus whenever he can. The mushi-repelling cigarettes he used to smoke the same way he breathed air are considered _impolite_ and _harmful_ in the modern era, so he only uses them when he's away from people. Of all his myriad habits both good and bad, this is one he wishes wasn't necessary, even if it brings him a strange comfort.

Somehow, the reincarnation gave him back the memories the Tokoyami ate. Ginko isn't sure how or why, but he has done extensive research and his favourite theory is that that particular Tokoyami is now somehow dead and that, in a similar way to a black hole emitting radiation from the things it consumes, the memories the Tokoyami ate were released when it died. Somehow, the memories that are his found their way back, releasing all the other memories the reincarnation locked away.

He misses his mother. He misses Nui. But most of all, he misses _Adashino_ and _Tanyuu_ and _Isaza_. He hopes that they are here too and that he will find them.


	2. Adashino

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend, found anew.

Ginko trips on a root while walking one day and while his ankle is fine, he gets a cut on his forehead above his eye and a badly twisted wrist from landing wrong. He makes his way back to campus with one hand pressed to his forehead to stem the bleeding and the injured arm cradled to his chest. He has a first aid kit at home and is mentally going through it when someone runs past him, slamming their shoulder into his back and almost knocking him over, pushing him into a railing.

Ginko unthinkingly tries to catch himself with his injured hand and snarls as the sudden impact sends a spike of pain through his wrist. The one who ran into him keeps running, not even tossing an apology over their shoulder. He leans his body on the railing and clutches the throbbing wrist in his hand and feels blood trickling down his forehead again as the cut reopens.

Cursing to himself, Ginko pushes away from the railing and is about to set off again when a student maybe a year or two older than him suddenly appears.

"Are you ok?" the man asks. Ginko makes a face.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he says, moving to leave. "I just need to get this cut cleaned."

"I could help you with that," the man says, and Ginko gives him a weird stare because right now he can't tell if the guy is offering help or coming on to him and either way he really doesn't want to deal with it.

He must clearly have seen Ginko's expression, because the man laughs awkwardly and apologises.

"Sorry. My name is Adashino and I study mushi medicine. I just think you should get that looked at by someone, because it looks pretty bad," he explains, but Ginko's mind screeched to a halt when the stranger said his name was _Adashino_ and he's not really listening.

_Adashino._

Ginko blinks, forcibly snapping his focus back to the here and now.

"I'm Yoki," he replies, and almost says Ginko because he can see it so clearly now, this is Adashino reincarnated but _he doesn't remember his past yet_.

"And, uh, thanks, but I'll be fine, I just need to get home,"

Adashino eyes him dubiously and the expression is so familiar it hurts.

"Are you sure?" the doctor asks. Ginko nods cautiously.

"Yes, don't worry," he replies, shooing away the small swarm of mushi that have gathered around the wound to feed on the blood. Adashino's expression shifts to one of genuine concern and it takes Ginko another second to understand that this Adashino can't see mushi either.

"It's just mushi," he explains, and there's a sudden light in Adashino's eyes.

"You can see them?" he exclaims, almost excitedly, and Ginko gives him a small half-smile.

"I've always been able to," he tells the man who was his friend once, and leans on the railing again to glance up at the sun, trying to decide if it's lunchtime or this strange faint feeling is something other than hunger and pain.

"... You don't _look_ very good," Adashino tells him, and Ginko can see from the way Adashino is frowning and crossing his arms that he needs to get out of here _fast_ before the doctor does something drastic.

"Really, it's nothing-" Ginko says, and that's as far as he gets before Adashino grabs his uninjured arm and begins to gently drag him along.

"Yoki, you look like you're going to collapse within the next few minutes and I live right here so I'm going to check out that wound and get your wrist bandaged up and after that you're free to go if you're feeling better but right now you don't get to protest," Adashino tells him. Ginko protests a little anyways, but mostly for show. This turn of events has thrown him completely off balance and he's trying to find equilibrium before Adashino decides to pester him with questions.

Adashino lives less than a minute off from where they met. He sits Ginko down at the kitchen table, puts on a kettle to make tea and disappears into his room to get his supplies. Ginko takes advantage of his absence and studies the room.

Adashino's love for and obsession with mushi is clearly the same now as it was then, judging by the books and items scattered about. In fact, he recognises most of them- he has most of the books himself and either owns or remembers many of the artefacts.

Adashino returns as the kettle boils and hands Ginko buckwheat tea in a mug with cheesy mushi print, muttering something about it "being a gift" when Ginko stares at the pattern. It is an obvious lie, but Ginko doesn't mind. It's so very in character for modern-day Adashino to own this kind of thing.

Ginko closes his eye and sits very still while Adashino cleans the cut on his forehead and is relieved when the doctor tells him it won't need stitches.

The wrist, too, seemed worse than it was. It's just twisted, not sprained like Ginko feared. And by the time Adashino has wrapped it tightly in supportive bandages, Ginko has finished his tea and feels a lot better about it all.

"Thank you," he says when Adashino returns from putting away the first aid kit. It's the first time he speaks since the doctor dragged him here, and Adashino grins.

"No problem, Yoki. Don't strain you wrist for the next few days and be careful with it for two weeks and it should be fine. And the cut will heal on its own, just keep it clean," he says. Ginko smiles and rises from the chair.

"I'll do my best," he promises.

He kicks off his shoes as soon as he’s in his own room and ends up in front of the mirror staring at himself. He doesn’t look all that different from Back Then; his hair and eye were the most striking things about his appearance and he hides those now. But apart from that, everything’s the same.

_Adashino_.

He’s younger, more carefree, more visibly excited at things, but it’s still _his Adashino_. In all his years as a wandering Mushishi, since the day he first met the doctor by chance, Adashino has been one of the few geographical constants in Ginko’s life. He has wandered the same paths many times, but few places have been as pleasant to stay at as Adashino’s village, even if getting there meant crossing a mountain range. And the swamps. He’s still slightly upset at the swamps. Some of them dried out, but there’s still more than Ginko thinks is reasonable.

There’s a restless feeling in his legs and he itches for a cigarette. Ginko doesn’t care how harmful they’re considered today; they’ve helped him a lot over the years. He grabs his coat, checks his pockets for keys and cigarette case, and leaves suddenly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we have Adashino! I love this man and the way he's presented in the show. He's a skilled doctor and he knows the world is full of bad things and sometimes the only thing you can do is ease someone's pain, but the moment there are mushi involved he becomes and excitable kid.  
> Adashino in this story will lean more on the "excitable kid" side because he's younger and has probably seen far less suffering at this point in his new life compared to in his old life. He's a good one.


	3. Saishu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected-but-not-really old acquaintance shows up.

There’s a park near the University. Ginko likes it. It’s large and full of plants and life and tiny mushi flitting between the leaves and flowers and insects. There are winding paths and hidden benches and little ponds for him to explore, and there’s always people there, but they hardly ever seem to notice him.

When staying in his rooms gets too stuffy and stationary, Ginko heads out to the park to study. He’s found a favourite tree in one of the more hidden corners, right by a little pond, to sit under. Even as autumn progresses, he finds himself sitting there more often than not.

It takes Ginko a moment to notice the man standing next to him, and he only really does because the man is blocking the sunlight. He looks up from his books, already asking what the guy wants, and stops suddenly.

The man looks to be in his late thirties and there is nothing unusual about him, but Ginko _knows_ he has seen him before. He’s wearing sunglasses and staring steadily at Ginko, who is just about to demand an explanation when the man finally cracks a slight smile and nods in greeting.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d still be around, Ginko-san,” the man says, lowering his sunglasses to reveal perfectly ordinary brown eyes, and Ginko suddenly remembers.

“Saishu,” he nods in reply. “I did wonder where you were these days. And I’m not ‘still around’, it’s more of a ‘back again’ situation,” he says.

The Saishu nods. “I see.”

He sits down next to Ginko and nods at the reincarnated Mushishi’s hair.

“Dye?”

Ginko nods. “And a coloured contact lens. I don’t like the attention.”

“Do your contacts last well?” Saishu asks.

“Yeah, they do. Why?”

“Mine keep dissolving,” the immortal being says, almost sheepishly, and Ginko blinks.

“The kouki glow. Of course,” he says, making a face.

When Saishu woke up again after Ginko gave him the Narazu seed, the man’s eyes had glowed faintly yellow. The glow had never faded, but stayed at a constant level that wasn’t very noticeable to most people in daylight, but became very apparent in darkness. If the world found out what he was, in this age… Ginko doesn’t want to think about it.

“What are you doing these days?” Ginko asks.

“Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that,” he replies. “I am something of an expert when it comes to agriculture now, but I try to keep my identity hidden, so I’ve had a few different jobs over the years.”

“Yeah, it has been over a century, hasn’t it,” Ginko muses. “What is your identity now?”

“I am Minoru Hiro, a researcher at Tokyo University of Agriculture. And you?”

“I’m Ayumu Yoki, a student at the university here,” Ginko says, and Hiro grins.

“I didn’t think you’d keep using your old name, no,” he smiles, and Ginko’s lips twitch.

“It would be a bit tricky to explain,” he agrees.

Hiro looks at Ginko’s books and raises an eyebrow. “Mushi studies?”

Ginko shrugs. “It seemed natural.”

“Heh. I can’t say I blame you.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes.

“Have you met any other reincarnated people from our time?” Hiro asks, carefully, and Ginko nods and looks away.

“One, so far. A friend. He does not remember anything.”

“A Mushishi, like you?”

Ginko digs his e-cigarette out of a pocket and takes a slow pull from it. Watches the vapour dissolve in the faint breeze as he exhales. “No. He was never able to see Mushi, although he was utterly fascinated by them. I don’t believe whether or not you can see Mushi has any bearing on reincarnation,”

“It probably doesn’t,” Hiro says.

When he leaves, the immortal being hesitates. “Will you keep an eye out for Sane?” he asks.

Ginko smiles. “Of course,” he agrees, remembering Hiro’s apprentice from their first meeting. The boy had turned into a fine Saishu in his own right, after Hiro died and was resurrected. It would be nice to see how he’s doing if he too got reincarnated.

They part on good terms, the immortal man and the reincarnated one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! I meant to have this up a few days ago but exams are kicking my ass... done with those soon, though! Just the worst one to go.
> 
> So! The implications of the Heavy Seed episode are very interesting. "Saishu" means something like "priest" so I doubt it's a name many people would go by in everyday life. Especially if it could possibly be tied to this weird old mushishi rumour about an immortal agriculture expert... Anyway. This is the first of a number of cameo appearances to come. I like the idea of people being around or back again in the modern era, and it makes sense that Hiro here would be aware of reincarnation and generally keep an eye out. Mushishi is set in a kinda nebulous fictional era that's close-ish to the modern era, what with Ginko's outfit and some of his tools, but nowhere near close enough for any of the characters to have suvived to this kinda nebulous modern era setting.  
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well. :)  
> (And yes, Ginko absolutely vapes.)


	4. Study Buddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> University is hard and mushi are tricky.

Ginko has been keeping an eye out for Adashino. Of course he has. He was never this kind of anxious about people in the Old Days, but… this is a new era, a new Adashino, a new himself. He knows the mushi medicine studies are brutally hard, but he also knows that Adashino has the brains and the tenacity and the sheer stubbornness to graduate and do so at the top of his class. But he keeps an eye out even so, and he says hi when they happen to meet but he doesn’t seek the doctor out of his own volition.

And then one day he catches Adashino at the library with prints of several different mushi spread across the desk, apparently trying to identify them by referencing a scan of an old scroll. He has circled them in different colours in an attempt to colour code the different subspecies.

He has almost got it all right. Almost.

Ginko studies the sheets for a few seconds before Adashino notices him. The dark-haired man looks up, looking slightly frazzled behind his glasses.

Ah, of course. His sight.

“Oh hi Yoki, I didn’t see you there,” he says.

“You mixed those two up,” Ginko says, pointing at some of the mushi images.

“What-” Adashino looks down, frowning, then picks the paper up and holds it close to the lamp.

“I... you’re right. How did you spot that so fast?” he asks, furiously drawing new circles in the correct colours.

Ginko takes a seat next to him, offering a lopsided grin. “I wanted to be a Mushishi when I was a kid,” he says. “I spent hours reading old Mushishi stories and studying Mushi.”

Adashino stares. “You learned to identify rare mushi subspecies without references as a _kid?_ ” he asks, incredulously.

Ginko’s grin widens slightly and he looks away. “I was very dedicated,” he says, and Adashino stifles a laugh.

“It’s still very impressive,” the doctor says, and Ginko almost shoots back with banter that he isn’t yet close enough with this Adashino for. Instead, he shrugs.

“I had… a lot of time to myself, and I could see them anyways. Oh- you’re mixing those two up as well, the one on the left causes fever _without_ hallucinations,”

Adashino curses under his breath and draws new circles as Ginko gets his own books out.

Then he takes a new print out from his bag, and turns to Ginko in desperation when they feature another set of nearly-identical creatures.

“Please help me,” he says, and Ginko has to laugh.

They start studying together once a week after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> University is hard, exams are stressful, christmas takes up a lot of time. Hi guys! :) I'm back now.
> 
> ooo, Ginko's mysterious modern past, and poor Adashino with his super demanding degree. I'm pretty happy with this chapter.


	5. Tanyuu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter in a coffee shop.

He finds her by accident in a coffee shop. Ginko lives by taking each day as it comes, sticking to the schedules he has to when he has to but otherwise following each achievable impulse as it comes, and this afternoon he wants a mocha, so he gets one.

He's spotted a small free table in a corner and is making his way there when he glances at a table stacked high with papers and notebooks and his eyes catch the title of a very rare anthology of Mushishi stories he has been trying and failing to track down for years.

Ginko stops in his tracks and reads the page, not noticing that the owner of the papers is approaching. But he finishes reading and looks up and there she is, in leg braces and crutches, giving him a look that is half curious and half threatening.

Tanyuu was always protective of her stories.

"Can I help you?" She asks politely, and he yanks himself out of his thoughts, stepping away from the table, respecting her space and her writings just like he used to.

"I'm sorry, I just happened to see the anthology on your table. I've been trying to find it for years," he says, gesturing with the hand not holding his drink, and her gaze softens slightly.

"Are you a fellow scholar, or...?" She asks, and of course she's a scholar, he's not even surprised. This is Tanyuu, after all.

"Mushi studies," he says. "But I'm very interested in the old Mushishi stories. Where did you find that one?"

"It's from my family's archives," she says. "I'm Karibusa Tanyuu,"

He almost introduces himself as Ginko. Almost. But he catches himself and says Yoki instead and she smiles and before he can do anything they're discussing the legitimacy of a certain story collection (it's not legitimate, but he only knows because of his Old memories and the academic world is having circular arguments) and she is delighted to have someone who understands the finer details of old mushi treatments as well as she does, even if she doesn't suspect the real reason why.

They exchange social media information when Ginko makes a very legitimate-sounding excuse not long after and heads home, still reeling a little from the meeting.

Adashino and Tanyuu. What are the odds? Of the three people he kept regular contact with, two are at the same university as him. Adashino studying mushi medicine, and Tanyuu getting a PhD in mushi histories. All of them repeating their previous lives, but also expanding into this new, globalized world. Tanyuu in particular seems to have bloomed beyond what she did in the past, with access to more information, more resources, more stories... More people around her, a bigger world at her feet, better mobility. She was magnificent before, but now in the future he knows she'll rise to true greatness. It feels just, that she gets this opportunity.

He wonders if Isaza is around.

He doesn’t tell Adashino about Tanyuu, or Tanyuu about Adashino. She had known of Adashino’s existence Back Then, and Adashino may have been aware of hers, but they never met. It is never relevant to any conversations, either. Bringing one up to the other would serve no point. And a small part of him believes he’ll have trouble dealing with both of them at once, but he doesn’t really want to admit that.

But he emails Hiro, letting him know that he’s found another reincarnated soul, this one a Mushishi. He hesitates when giving Tanyuu that title, but the truth is dark and complex and not his to tell. “Mushishi” is the closest approximation he can give.

Hiro is delighted. Apparently he has had theories about reincarnation, and Ginko is confirming some of them. He is elusive about the nature of those theories, though, and Ginko refrains from digging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos, they mean the world to me :) You're all awesome.
> 
> Tanyuu is amazing. And she would definitely 100% thrive in the modern era, with internet and all that stuff to get her out into the world.


	6. Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginko spends his semester break away from university.

A full semester has passed and Ginko is getting restless. He still doesn’t like staying in one place for long and the amount of mushi at the university has become alarming. He wishes Adashino good holidays and sets off on a three-week backpacking trip across the country, alternating between trains and walking and stopping wherever he likes.

It’s the little old villages that make him the happiest. Some of them even have a resident Mushishi still, even if it’s an unofficial position. The profession has not faded into obscurity as much as it has branched out, specialised and evolved over time. Traditional Mushishi are few and far between, and almost nobody has it as their primary profession. Most of them have branched into apothecary trades and deal with mushi as a side business or hobby.

This is mostly because the modern world has developed so many ways of dealing with mushi. Ginko himself uses several kind of commercial repellents to make up for living in one place for so long and not being able to smoke as much as he did. Simple remedies for mushi-related problems and illnesses are also more easily available and usually as or more effective than the things Ginko remembers.

But there are also so many new kinds of mushi around. Mushi that feed on electricity, on radiation, on the visible and invisible by-products of human technological development and evolution. Flocks of them swarm around electrical transformers and migrate along the exhaust-filled highways. Sometimes they wreak havoc in chemical plants. On one memorable occasion, a particularly large infestation shut down most of the shinkansen network for several days and threw the entire country into chaos. He finds them circling radio towers and phone lines, floating lazily along industrialised rivers and feeding on the sheer excess energy of millions of people existing and walking and breathing and _living_ in one place.

When he returns for the next semester, he has a notebook full of sketches and a small collection of new stories and handbooks to bury himself in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Short chapter this time, but we touch on modern mushi. I very much prefer the idea that mushi have evolved and are still definitely around in new forms, rather than staying the same or slowly fading. There's just too much fun to be had with weird modern mushi :)
> 
> Also, all of your comments are super nice and heartwarming and inspiring to read! :) I just get overwhelmed by them sometimes so responding can be... difficult. Anyway, thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember where I got the idea for this but I'm invested in it. It's a meandering sort of story, and we'll have references to and visits from the episodes and various characters. Also, modern mushi are fascinating thought.


End file.
